ChessFlash wrote on 03/31/13 at 12:04:31:

Yes. I tend to play very sharp, tactical lines where one false moves means disaster. Which again brings me back to my idea of trying out some new openings. If I play quieter openings, I'm more likely to survive the opening and early middle game where knowing the opening really matters, and I'll just reach middle games where I don't know what I'm doing. Which I guess means it's time to start reading some of the books I already own on positional play.

It really depends There's no should involved really.

I certainly can't understand how people manage to play the same opening for years (decades?) on end. Mostly due to the boredom mind!

It must also be ultimately a little self limiting if taken too far.

An alternative option to simply playing openings at random is to vary it over time. So pick say two openings a year, prepare them a little bit over the summer and switch the next year etc. You'll cover most of the openings that you like the feel in a few.

Tks to the answers. As a collector of chess books I will have a look in all of those mentioned.

Jupp53 wrote on 03/27/13 at 12:46:39:


It sounds to me like what you're looking for is Pawn Structure Chess, and there is a new edition out (that I have yet to see).  

It's not a perfect book, but it comes closest to covering all standard middlegame pawn structures than any other single volume.  You'll learn much more about IQP and hanging pawn positions from Baburin's book, for instance, but those are the only positions he discusses!  And for most amateurs whose study time is limited, there isn't time to read 5-10 different volumes to get all this information.  Start with Soltis and then get more specialized works that apply to the openings you play and that you are particularly interested in.  

Watson's series is more openings and their typical plans. Soltis maybe more what I search if it isn't too much in the line of Fine. (All good to excellent works imo.)

What I search is an advice about strategical methods:

- The Capablanca and the Lasker manoevres are an examples of freeing the position by exchanges.
- Nimzowitsch-Indian is an example for gaining influence in the center via piece play.
- Some Gambits give time for material.

So teaching strategy should be the theme and the opening should be seen as a tool to increase the probability of getting the right positions for the study of a certain strategic method. 

Mostly its the other way round. The opening line demands this strategy is always written down.

Openings can be seen as a tool to educate your chess. Looking at the question of the TO this way it's a question of the syllabus which openings should be played.

And looking at myself from this point of view (FIDE-Elo 1950) there's a desert of ignorance with some living spots of knowledge:
- Play open games and gambits to learn the value of development and direct attack against the king
- Fight for the center with pawns to get a space advantage, with pieces and livers to destroy the weakend positions
- Some positions are so sharp you should know concrete lines or avoid them

And that's it.  The rest are some primitive tricks picked up by playing and used to survive the opening.

This leads me to the question: There are load of opening books and they are mostly boring imo, because they tread openings as something interesting per se. (This is true for many players. All right.) Is there a book treating openings as teaching tool for a syllabus on strategies? For tactics there are some, mostly with short games. (I love Neistadt - Eröffnungsfehler und lehrreiche Kombinationen.)

I don't know about openings everyone should play. There's a lot of stuff that I would never play.

But study... that's something else entirely. I think everything is worth studying, particularly the big boys (Ruy Lopez, Catalan, Queen's Gambit Declined, King's Indian Defense, Open Games, Sicilian) just because all of them are so diverse and form the backbone of so many varying positions. When you hear things like "typical freeing move ...c5" (QGD), "typical Catalan edge" (good light-squared bishop versus bad), black's dark-squared control is easily worth the exchange" (KID), "black's central break disrupts white's kingside attack" (Sicilian), "<insert color>'s slow development allowed <insert color> to steal the initiative" (Open Games), and "white's typical kingside maneuvers" (Ruy Lopez) all of them do much to enhance chess understanding. Quite often just studying the various highways and byways of one of those particular openings can give insight to various other positions, and inform one as to chess in general.

I will never be caught playing the black side of the Open Games, for example, just because I don't care for the chore. There's no fun in it for me, but I have studied them a good deal. Everyone should. More than once studying something entirely unrelated to my repertoire gives me a new idea to apply to positions more within my sphere of practice.